West girls, boys sweep WNCAC meet with depth

Brittany Jackson

Wednesday

Apr 25, 2012 at 11:21 PMApr 25, 2012 at 11:29 PM

EDNEYVILLE — The pre-meet performance list went out the window for the girls' portion of the WNC Athletic Conference track and field meet Wednesday at North Henderson, as West Henderson was seeded to break its 10-year title streak to Pisgah this year.
But thanks to depth and motivation to make this year No. 11 for West, the Lady Falcons dominated with a 148.5-point win over second-place Tuscola (105). Pisgah was third with 98 and East Henderson finished fourth with 97.
To make things even sweeter, West's boys, who have made clean sweeps of every meet save one this season, finished the regular season strong as they earned Coach Walt Fletcher his first WNCAC title. The Falcons won the meet with 180 points as East Henderson placed second with 152.
Both Fletcher and West girls' coach Randy Lytle were named the WNCAC coaches of the year.
"I'm floating," Fletcher said. "This is my fourth year coaching, and at the beginning of the meet when they recognized the seniors I thought, ‘These are my guys.' They've worked so hard, and as I've said since the beginning of the year, our depth has been the biggest thing."
The Lady Falcons, too, had a good showing of depth and proved that it's not necessarily first-place spots that win meets.
"We placed in every single event, which is what we've done all year, but I wasn't expecting them to do that at the conference meet," Lytle said. "On the bus ride I told them they've got to place better than they were expected to; I told them they've got to come through, and they did."
West's Heidi Brickhouse won the shot put with a distance of 36-01, which set a school record. Melissa White won the 100-meter hurdles (17.16 seconds). Those were the Lady Falcons' only wins of the meet. Angela Gross placed second in the 800-meter run (2:29.69) and 3,200-meter run (12:32.95). The Lady Falcons also placed second in the 4x800-meter and 4x100-meter relays.
"They certainly deserve it," Lytle said. "I've coached for 17 years and this is the best group of girls I've coached."
North Henderson's 4x800-meter girls won the event with a season-best time of 10:10.82 (Catie Byrd, Elena Oslund, Emily Pruitt and Daphne Hill). Hill placed second in the 300-meter hurdles (51.41) and Sommer Green was runner-up in the 100-meter dash (12.70).
Byrd was second in the 1,600-meter run (5:40.31) to the conference's Most Valuable Female Track Athlete, Smoky Mountain's Nancy Ford, who ran a 5:33.74. East Henderson's Mariah Rock was voted the Most Valuable Female Field Athlete after wins in the long jump (14-10.5) and triple jump (33-05).
West's boys won three of the four relays, including a close come-from-behind 3.34.38 win in the 4x400-meter, thanks to anchor Zach Bryant. North took the 4x200-meter relay with a season-best time of 1:32.71, just 0.21 seconds ahead of the Falcons.
In individual events Bryant won the 400-meter dash (52.66), Conor Kennedy won the 800-meter (2:04.96) and Landon Siske won the 110-meter hurdles (15.86).
Most Valuable Male Track Athlete Kaleb Barner (North) won both the 100-meter (11.24) and 200-meter dashes (22.78), despite nursing a strained hamstring, and also helped boost the Knights to the 4x200-meter win. Freshman Tyler Heaton won the 300-meter hurdles for North with a time of 43.06 seconds, and West's Tyler Pederson was second (43.16).
East's Steffon Hill, named the WNCAC's Most Valuable Male Field Athlete, won both the triple jump (44-08) and long jump (20-05) and placed second in the high jump (5-10). Also for East, Kyle Malone blasted the competition in the discus throw with a toss of 143-11.
Brevard's Tommy Connell won the 1,600-meter (4:40.23) and East's Tanis Baldwin, Brandon Garren and Grant Smith went 1-2-3 in the 3,200-meter.
East also won first and second place in pole vault with Corey Ginley (13-00) and Heath Kidd (12-00).
The 3-A teams will have a two-and-a-half week break before competing in the Regional meet at Polk County High on May 12.
"This is a good confidence boost for us," Fletcher said of winning the conference. "The guys are thinking big goals now. We'll have guys in every event at Regionals, so it's there for us if we want it."

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